New York Times Op-Ed: Women, Booze and the Vote

New York Times Opinion by Elaine Weiss

March 5, 2018

Jane Walker will take over her brother Johnny’s whiskey label this month — in honor of Women’s History Month, we’re told — a temporary rebranding that’s fueling comic riffs by Stephen Colbert and other cynical types. It might seem innocuous enough — an unsubtle attempt to lure skittish female drinkers to whiskey — but there’s a back story to this relationship that’s worth noting.

The liquor industry was once the most powerful opponent of granting women their civil rights. Jane Walker, in a sense, would have been an anti-suffragist. And over decades, the industry provided much of the “dark money” used to fight woman suffrage in Congress and in the states.